Business as Usual
by Bluebeak
Summary: AU: Ike is having a bit of bad luck lately. Can his bartending friend and his band of regular wierdoes help him out of his funk? M for alcohol references and violence and ALL SORTS OF GOOD THINGS.
1. Prologue

"Ugh! Shut _up_, you bastard! I never want to see you again!"

You would think, in a city as big as Begnion, one couple breaking up wouldn't cause any scene. To be fair, it probably didn' things always seem bigger closer up, you know?

"Come on, babe. I didn't mean anything by it! I was just-"

"I know _exactly_ what you were doing! And don't call me that! We are _through_, Ike!"

The green-haired woman started stomping away down the busy sidewalk, people automatically making a path for her.

"Elincia, wait!" The violet-haired man started sprinting after her, but it was too late. All the moving people were working against him now as he tried to swim upstream. After a few minutes of running, he slowed to a stop, his adrenaline waning as there was no sign of Elincia. She had lost herself in the crowd, and Ike couldn't catch up. He dragged his feet to the nearest wall and leaned heavily on it, sighing. He watched the people rush past him as he stood, stagnant, for a little while, looking up halfheartedly to see a sign, old looking but clean, that read 'The General' in an old-fashioned script.

A bar.

How convenient.

* * *

Prologue's done. I know its short, gomen but the next chapter is already written, so um.  
Forgiven?


	2. The General

Ike trudged in, staring down at his feet the whole time. He didn't need to look up to know where the bar counter was, though; in the back, to the right in the dimly lit building. When his dragging feet finally reached the counter, he slumped into one of the familiar barstools, at last looking up to meet eyes with the opal-haired bartender.

Marth.

Ike knew him by name—he'd been working behind the bar since Ike first started coming to The General; two and a half years and four girlfriends ago. The sitting male threw Marth an apathetic approximation of a smile as greeting, and the tender immediately took to the back room to mix Ike his preferred brew. The raven-haired man sighed in contentment. He always felt at home here—posters of a man named Zelgius on the wall, who Ike remembered meeting briefly once, a few laguz barmaids who knew him by name, drink, and probably physical dimensions as well. (He'd dated one of them once, but got dumped for his aversion to beastiality.)

When Ike had first set foot in the general, he was only eighteen (three years too young to be drinking in his hometown). But he looked old enough that Marth was the only person to question him. The tender knew his secret, but he never carded him. In his opinion, Ike was a responsible drinker, even as a teen. There were way more adults in the bar that were far less responsible.

By this time, the bartender had returned with a frothy mug of a house mix. He set it down on the marble counter in front of his friend.

"It's on me, man. Rough day?" The tender's voice was a little raspy—Marth clearly hadn't spoken much before the other had come in, and he cleared his throat.

Ike chuckled. "Understatement. You know that green-haired chick I started dating last month?" Marth nodded in both recognition and…realization. Ike drank from his mug languidly, graciously giving the tender time to think of a response. He set the heavy glass back down on the counter, smacking his lips. "It's as good as ever, Marth." The bartender responded with a grin as he took an empty glass from another patron and started scrubbing it down out of habit. He suddenly frowned, however.

"That's awful." He sighed, before cocking an eyebrow. "What's the verdict this time?" he asked, studying Ike's facial expressions carefully.

The younger man sighed. "Said I was dirt poor and she didn't feel like footing the bill for my house. Among other things."

Marth held back a snort (Did his friend always have to pick the snittiest women?) and looked apologetic. He sighed also. "Where are you living now?" Ike wasn't sure how to respond, so he took a long drink from his beer as he thought. "My little apartment went up in flames the other day. I still had payments to make on it, I think…" he muttered, the tender rolling his eyes at Ike's bad luck. "I was staying with Elincia since then," Ike continued, "Another reason she dumped me. She said I tried to grab her ass in the middle of the night." Marth chuckled a little, putting the glass he was working on in the drainer adjacent to the counter and picking another one up.

"Did you?" he asked, fighting a smile. Ike coughed and turned a rare shade of crimson.

"No! …Maybe—but that's not the point! The point is," he started again, clearing his throat, "to answer your question, I guess I'm not staying anywhere. I don't have a house to go home to." Ike's gaze sank to his nearly empty mug again, and Marth was chewing on his lip in thought.

After a few minutes of pseudo-silence, the tender's face brightened. "Ike, you can stay at my place!" The younger male raised an eyebrow, but the teal-haired tender looked as honest and innocent as a child.

Ike could feel himself delegating. "Do you have the room?" he asked skeptically. Marth nodded.

"I have a bed and a couch, so there's room for two people. It's not large, but its better than nothing, yes?"

Ike smiled for the first time that evening. "I can walk there if you give me directions." The elder male was nodding as he scrawled street names on a napkin. He handed it to Ike when he was finished.

"I get off work at one, but you can head over there whenever you want. Here's the spare key…" Marth dug around in his apron pocket and pulled out a single key on a thin keyring. He plopped the object into Ike's waiting hand. He nodded and got up from the bar, leaving a ten on the counter. Marth stared at it questioningly, quipping an eyebrow at his friend.

"You said the laquer was free, so that's all tip." Marth smiled and took away the now-empty mug, methodically polishing it. Seeming to remember something, he delicately put the cup in the drainer and pulled a camera out of his apron, calling out "Hey Ike, smile!"

As his friend turned and waved, Marth snapped a single picture of him. The raven-haired male stared blankly at him, but the opal-haired one only chuckled and waved back to him. Ike ducked out of The General feeling a lot better than when he'd gone in.

Marth's apartment building wasn't far away, and within a few minutes, Ike had entered, gone up a couple flights of stairs, and was standing outside a door marked with the numbers '201' and fumbling with the key. He pushed the door in and glanced around. As promised, there was both a soft-looking three-cushion couch, and a twqin-size bed with a pale blue bedspread. There was also a little desk, a tiny laptop sitting closed and off atop it. Double closet doors led to a simple wide closet on the right wall, and there was a slim sword perched delicately in a case above the bed. Apparently, that had belonged to Marth when he was a prince of a bygone nation, having lost his kingdom in a great flood thousands of years ago. (Ike thought the bartender was just making things up, as there was no 'Altea' in any history books, and Marth couldn't have been a day over twenty-four.)

Ike trudged over to the bed, flopping down on it stomach-first. He only wanted to catch a short nap…

* * *

Thoughts, maybe? I'm trying to keep the character personalities constant, and although I'm writing an AU, I want to keep them at least believable. How am I doing? R&R is fantastic. :)

Haha, I feel like I'm driving a really huge advertising truck.

_HOW'S MY DRIVING, GUYS._


End file.
